When Shall Thy Lovely Face Be Seen?

When shall Thy love­ly face be seen?

When shall our eyes behold our God?

What lengths of dist­ance lie be­tween

And hills of guilt? A hea­vy load!

Our months are ag­es of de­lay

And slow­ly ev­ery mo­ment wears;

Fly

wing­èd time

and roll away

These te­di­ous rounds of slug­gish years.

Ye heav­en­ly gates

loose all your chains!

Let th’eter­nal pil­lars bow

Blest Sav­ior! cleave the star­ry plains

And make the crys­tal mount­ains flow!

Hark

how Thy saints unite their cries

And pray and wait the ge­ne­ral doom;

Come Thou

the Soul of all of our joys

Thou

the De­sire of na­tions

come!

Put Thy bright robes of tri­umph on

And bless our eyes

and bless our ears

Thou ab­sent love

Thou dear un­known

Thou fair­est of ten thou­sand fairs.

Our heart-strings groan with deep com­plaint

Our flesh lies pant­ing

Lord

for Thee

And ev­ery limb

and ev­ery joint

Stretches for im­mor­tal­ity.

Our spi­rits shake their eag­er wings

And burn to meet Thy fly­ing throne;

We rise away from mor­tal things

T’attend Thy shin­ing cha­ri­ot down.

Now let our cheer­ful eyes sur­vey

The blaz­ing earth

the melt­ing hills;

Nor fear to see the lightn­ings play

And flash along be­fore Thy wheels!

O for a shout of vio­lent joys

To join the trum­pet’s thun­der­ing sound!

The an­gel her­ald shakes the skies

Awakes the graves

and tears the ground.

Ye slum­ber­ing saints

a heav’n­ly host

Stands wait­ing at your gap­ing tombs;

Let ev­ery sac­red sleep­ing dust

Leap in­to life

for Je­sus comes.

Jesus

the God of might and love

New molds our limbs of cum­brous clay;

Quick as se­raph­ic flames we move

Active and young

and fair as they.

Our airy feet with un­known flight

Swift as the mo­tions of de­sire

Run up the hills of heav­en­ly light

And leave the wel­ter­ing world in fire.